American origins of NATO : a study in domestic inhibitions and West European constraints

This thesis examines why the United States became a founder signatory to the North Atlantic Treaty in April 1949. The enquiry suggests that the perception of a Soviet challenge to Western Europe was a necessary condition for the Americans helping to create the postwar Atlantic Alliance but an historically inadequate explanation of the reasons they did so. The central conclusion reached in this thesis is that the Truman Administration planned beyond the short-term need to reassure the West Europeans and had its sights set on a longer-term objective. U.S. policy-makers sought to alter the political, economic and military status quo in Western Europe so as virtually to guarantee that the United States would not again be drawn into another world war centred on Europe. Crucial to this American policy objective was the inter-relationship between the temporary purposes of the North Atlantic Treaty and the unformulated but potent idea of West European unity. Contemporary documents make clear that the American concept of - and enthusiasm for - West European integration a) formed an essential part of security deliberations in Washington, including military planning, during the late 1940s; b) gave coherence to domestic, diplomatic, economic and military aspects of U.S. foreign policy; and c) governed the style, content and tone of transatlantic exchanges, ironically limiting the scope for independent U.S. initiatives while giving the war-weakened states of Western Europe a certain, but never decisive, influence over American policy towards themselves. By helping create conditions during the late 1940s in which a militarily self-sustaining Western Europe could emerge, the United States hoped eventually - possibly as early as the 1950s - to withdraw from Europe altogether. From then on containment in that all-important region would not be an American prerogative

Principles and prospects of high-energy magnesium-ion batteries

In the last decade or so, lithium batteries have gained important niche positions in the market for electrochemical storage systems. Their energy capacities per unit weight (or volume) are remarkably better than those of traditional batteries – yet they appear to be approaching their practical limit, and alternative cell systems are under active investigation. The potential advantages of replacing lithium by magnesium have long been recognised, but for years it was thought that materials limitations and technical problems would prevent them from being realised. However, a combination of commercial pressures and recent scientific breakthroughs has made it likely that magnesium batteries will soon be available for a wide range of applications; they are expected to be cheaper and safer than those based on lithium, with comparable performance. This article briefly reviews the current situation and looks at the general background, principles and cell components, outlining some of the technical problems and discussing some promising materials for magnesium-ion batteries. </jats:p

Study of ion mobility characteristics and morphology of some electrochemically-synthesised polypyrroles

This paper reports the diffusion coefficients of various dopant counter-anions into electrosynthesised polypyrrole films, the cyclic voltammetry behaviour of the doped polymers and the effects of the electrolyte on the morphology of the polymer. The diffusion properties of electrochemically-prepared poly(N-dodecylpyrrole) and polypyrrole films were investigated in electrochemical cells containing lithium perchlorate, tetramethylammonium chloride and sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate, and the effects of the size of the ions on their diffusion coefficients are discussed

Scorpionates : coordination chemistry comes home

Some underreported aspects of polypyrazolylborate chemistry are explored, in particular novel lanthanide coordination chemistry and zwitterionic ligand replacements of this so-called "scorpionate" class of ligands. The application of these ligands to future materials engineering is postulated and, finally, the historic relevance of the topic to L'viv is described

Selective surface fabrication using instability patterning

For the first time, a room temperature-curing liquid resin was patterned using electrohydrodynamic instability (EHD) processing. The resulting patterns, on the micrometre scale, became permanent after the resin had hardened. The factors affecting the scale, symmetry and morphology of the patterns were investigated